Now I Rise (The Conqueror's Saga #2)(114)

Radu felt dead inside as he answered. “I do not know.”

Kumal sat heavily next to Radu. “Is she …?”

“I sent her from the city on a boat with a trusted friend. But whether they got out, and where they went if they did, I do not know.” He had inquired after the boat and received no concrete word of its fate. His only hope was that once news traveled that Constantinople was open to Christian refugees and Ottoman citizens alike, Nazira would return.

“God will protect her.” Kumal took Radu’s hand and squeezed it. “We have fulfilled the words of the Prophet, peace be upon him. Her work in helping us will not be forgotten, nor go unrewarded by God.”

“How can you say that? How can you be so sure of the rightness of this? Did you not see what it cost? Were you not at the same battles I was?”

Kumal’s kind smile was sad. “I have faith because I must. At times like this, it is only through God that we can find comfort and meaning.”

Radu shook his head. “I despair that my time here has cost me even that. I do not know how to live in a world where everyone is right and everyone is wrong. Constantine was a good man, and he was also a fool who threw away the lives of his people. I have loved Mehmed with everything I am since I was a child, and I have longed to enter this city triumphant with him. But now that we are here, I cannot look at him without hearing the cries of the dying, without seeing the blood on my hands. Nazira and I—we ate and dreamed and walked and bled with these people. And now they are gone, and my people are here, but I do not know who I am anymore.”

Kumal said nothing, but he held Radu close as Radu cried.

“Give yourself some time,” Kumal whispered. “All will come right in the end. All these experiences will lead you to new ways to serve God on earth.”

Radu did not see how that was possible. He loved Kumal for trying to comfort and guide him, but he was no longer a lost little boy in a strange new city. Now he was a lost man in a broken old city, and no amount of prayers and kindness could undo what had been done.



Two weeks after the city fell, Mehmed asked Radu to meet him in the palace. He had set up a temporary residence there, already beginning construction on what would be his grand palace. A home to rival all others, a refuge from the world.

Radu passed a woman in the hallway.

“Radu?”

He blinked, focusing on her. “Urbana? I thought you were dead!”

Half her face was shiny with new scars, but she smiled. “No. And I got the forges at Constantinople, after all. I won!”

Radu tried to meet her happiness, but it was too large a task for him. “I am glad for you.”

“You are welcome to help me any time you want.” She patted his arm, already distracted and doubtless planning her next cannon. Radu watched her walk away, glad she had survived.

Then he saw two other familiar faces. Aron and Andrei Danesti. “Radu,” Andrei said. “I know you now.”

Radu did not bother bowing or showing respect. He was too tired for pretense. “Yes.”

“It is good to see you,” Aron said. “Will you take a meal with us later?”

“Do you mean that, or do you want something from me?”

Aron’s face and voice were soft. “Only the company of someone who speaks Wallachian and understands some of what we have been through these last months. And I want to apologize for our youth together. We were cruel. There is no excuse for that. It does my heart good, though, to see the man you have grown into. I would like to get to know you.”

Radu thought he would like to know himself, too. He felt like a stranger in his own skin. Sighing, he nodded. “Send word when you want me to come.”

Andrei nodded silently, and Aron clasped Radu’s hand. Then there was no one between Radu and the room that held Mehmed.

“Ah, Radu!” Mehmed stood when Radu entered, embracing him. Radu noted that they were alone. No stool bearer, no guards.

“What can I do for you, my sultan?”

Mehmed drew back, frowning. “Your sultan? Is that all I am to you?”

Radu passed a hand over his eyes. “I do not know. Forgive me, Mehmed. I am tired, and I have been pretending for so long, I can no longer remember what I am supposed to be and whom I am supposed to be it for.”

Mehmed took Radu’s hand and led him to sit in his own chair. “Well, that is part of what we are doing today. I know who you are, and you need a new title to reflect it. How do you feel about Radu Pasha?” Mehmed grinned. He was making it official that Radu was someone important in the empire.

Before he could think better of it, Radu answered, “I thought I was known as Radu the Handsome.”

In the shadow that passed over Mehmed’s face and the way he immediately looked away, it was confirmed. Mehmed had known about the rumors. He had known, and he had said nothing to Radu.

“Is that why you sent me away? To kill the whispers about us?”

“No! I never sent you away. You were always close to me. Every day I looked at the city and trained my thoughts on you, wishing you well and worrying for you. I am so sorry that your time in the city was terrible. Soon it will be as a dream.”

“It was not all terrible,” Radu said. Something in the way Mehmed’s expression shifted to deliberate casualness made his next question anything but innocent.